


The roughest of mountains

by liz_mo



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-02
Updated: 2012-12-02
Packaged: 2017-11-20 03:17:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/580707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liz_mo/pseuds/liz_mo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Why does Azazel stay with Erik? For that matter, why does he stay with Shaw? An Azazel origin story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The roughest of mountains

**Author's Note:**

  * For [madsmurf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/madsmurf/gifts).



> For madsmurf in the secret_mutant exchange 2012. Prompt was: Why does Azazel stay with Erik?  
> I hope I did it justice.  
> I have basically no clue whatsoever about comics-verse. It is too confusing for me. I've managed to snatch up a few tidbits here and there, which might have found their way into the story.  
> Also lots of things from wikipedia and http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/2203-azazel  
> Savta is Grandfather in hebrew (according to the internet).  
> Thank you, dearest mistress of my commas, for watching X-Men: First Class, just so you could beta this story.

_A very, very long time ago_

When Azazel was young the world was a wonderful place.  
The cave he lived in with Sav-ta was deep and vast and during the rain season he could explore it for hours and never come to its end.  
It had pools filled with clear blue water so deep that Azazel couldn't dive to the bottom, and caverns so vast his voice would echo for hours.  
Above the cave was a mountain.  
From its top Azazel could see all over the desert and it was wide and rough and beautiful.

*

„Why do we find a goat in the desert once a year, sav-ta?“

„The people of the village you were born in think you're the child of a Jinn. And so they sacrifice to that Jinn, so it might never send another demon child again.“

Azazel's tail twitched.

„Am I a demon, sav-ta?“

„No, child, you are not. And don't ever think you are. I don't know why Yhwh chose to make you this way, but who are we to know his great plan?“

*  
It was a small world he and Grandfather inhabitated, but it was theirs and it was peaceful.  
And Azazel was never bored.

Until the day the villagers came, because they figured a goat once a year was not enough.

*

Azazel stood at the still smoking remains of the burning pyre and tried hard to keep the tears at bay.  
Grandfather had told him this day might come. That people with fear and hatred in their hearts might come and try to kill him. And when that day came Azazel was to hide as deep in the cave as he could and not come out for at least a day and a night.  
And when Grandfather took him by the shoulders, looked into his frightened eyes and told him he loved him, that was what Azazel did.

And now he bent down to the warm ashes of the pyre and carefully scooped them all up into a pot.  
He carried the pot onto the top of the mountain.  
There he opened the pot and let the wind carry away the ashes.

Then he climbed down the mountain and left the cave, the only home he'd ever known, behind.

*

Azazel regretted killing all the villagers so quickly. Oh, it had been fun. How they tried to run from him, screaming, and how they couldn't, because he went everywhere faster than him. And how they screamed and begged when he stood above them with his tail poised. Then Azazel remembered Grandfather's screams and begging, the ones so loud he'd heard them even while hiding deep within the cave, and the tail would strike.  
But it was over too quickly, there were too few of them.  
He should have made some of them beg a bit more before killing them.

And where should he go now?

*

_Still a very, very long time ago_

Eventually, Azazel found out where he should go. The world was very big. Though it was never quite as beautiful as the cave and the mountain and the desert. But there were lots of people in that world and they were all afraid of him. And they all begged prettily as he was about to kill them.  
Eventually Azazel learned how many ways of killing there were, how he could make them beg longer and how sometimes it was better not to kill them. Because sometimes they were people who proved to be useful, even if they often only worshipped him because they thought he was Satan.  
Azazel found it quite prudent to encourage them to think that. If anything, his followers brought him humans to have sex with and to kill. 

The centuries passed, then the millenia. 

Azazel was bored very often.

*

_A long time ago_

The only times Azazel wasn't bored, were when he got to try out a new weapon.  
If he could say anything for the humans it was that they got really inventive about slaughtering each other. He still liked swords and knifes best, though. Not the least because they were the weapons the wounds inflicted by his tail got most confused with.

Azazel made sure to always have his favourite kind of knives stashed somewhere a teleportation away. That way he never had to carry them around.

*

_Some time ago_

Azazel was bored again. It happened more and more frequently. Oh, this century had started out promisingly enough. The Great War – as everyone called it – had brought death and destruction all over Europe and some of Asia, too, and for the first time in a long while Azazel had hoped mankind would manage to destroy itself. And the killing had been glorious. So much fun to be had.  
But the slow and gruesome deaths in the hospital beds, the leeching of life out of a man with no legs who stepped on a mine, the body parts of a man ripped to pieces by a mortar, that wasn't fun. There was no challenge, no begging. And Azazel so liked to look into the eyes of the petty human he was about to kill.

And then the camps. Azazel shuddered. He was aware that these were the descendants of the people who had killed sav-ta. But humans slaughtering other humans was not much fun.

Taking a sip of his Vodka, Azazel let his eyes roam over the inhabitants of the Hellfire Club.  
Gambling, adultery, and other forms of sin were all around, the humans enjoying their little games. But it was still all so boring. Humans thought it was new and exciting, but it had been the same over and over again for most of the last 50 centuries.

At least here, no one paid him any attention. All the self -absorbed humans who would usually be the first to cry „Devil! Satan!“, didn't even glance in his direction. They probably just assumed that someone had a taste for elaborate roleplaying. Azazel smirked into his drink.  
He had half a mind to teleport onto one of the glittering tables and cause a panic. At least it would eliviate his boredom.

Suddenly Azazel registered that he was being watched. It was a middleaged, white male who raised his martini glass in a toast when Azazel's eyes fell on him.  
With a small dip of his head, he indicated that Azazel should follow him.

Azazel's tail twitched. If his instincts were correct, the man wasn't human any more than he was.  
Seemed like his boredom was about to be elevated.

*

Azazel hadn't expected much. Mostly he'd been curious. At the most he figured he'd get some sex out of it, the man hadn't been unattractive.

What he hadn't expected was a mastermind whose plans were the most interesting thing that had happened in centuries. A world where the human were but slaves that they would rule. Azazel liked that plan immensly. It sounded like fun.

*

_A while after that_

Shaw wasn't the only one. There were even more like them. Most were not so obvious as Azazel himself, but he quite liked Emma's diamond form. It sometimes reminded him of the way the light sparkled off of crystals in long forgotten caves.

And sometimes, when they were near a body of water, Riptide would call up a wind that felt like the wind on the first day of rain season in a nameless desert.

*

_Now_

Azazel wasn't bored.

His blood was racing and a wide grin spread across his features.  
Finally not just pathetic little humans, who mostly were just good enough to be slaughtered, but a being who matched him strength for strength.  
Even his teleporting ability wasn't a last resort.  
Beast was a formidable enemy who had managed to outwit him.  
Azazel hadn't had this much fun since the beginning of the century.

*

Shaw was dead. 

Killed by the one Shaw had called Erik.  
Azazel watched dispassionately as the rockets streaked towards them.  
He hoped he could teleport some of them out. It would be a waste if more of their kind died, now that he'd finally found them. 

But then Erik commandeered the rockets and turned them all towards the humans.  
Azazel licked his lips.  
It seemed Erik wasn't too fond of humans, either. And he wasn't so much interested in ruling the world or enslaving the humans. He just wanted to kill them.  
Azazel approved very much.

The man who had taken up Shaw’s helmet had several weaknesses, but Azazel would have lots of fun watching him try to kill all the humans. In the meantime he woulddn't be bored.  
And then there was the woman, whose blue skin Azazel couldn't wait to see in contrast against his own.


End file.
